I’ve been thinking lately about how real the online world is. Saturday night I went to a party and talked at length with one of my real world friends, Dean. It was fun because we keep up with each others’ goings on primarily through Facebook and Twitter, and the occasional email, even though we live and work within the same few square miles of Vancouver. We both have busy lives, and if it weren’t for our online connection, we’d be catching up once a year at the AGM of the Health Libraries Association of BC.

This had me thinking of other such connections in my online world:

• During one of the FOC08 course meetings using Elluminator, I discovered another participant, Daryl, who lives on the other side of the world has a boxer – his a white, mine a fawn.
• I recently read a tweet by the aforementioned real life friend, Dean – “6 Reasons to reject the iPhone” – which turns out to be a blog post by FOC08’s facilitator, Leigh Blackall.
• A few years ago, I was invited to dinner with a Boxer Mailing List friend as she passed through Vancouver on her way to a job in Alaska. One of the other dinner guests turned out to be a real life friend I’d lost touch with and hadn’t seen in about 10 years. We knew Susan from very different circles, both of  which were online communities (boxer lovers; Xena fans). (Susan’s suicide rocked both online communities several years ago.)
• At one of my dog classes a few months ago, I met Dug with whom I’d worked on a research project – all our previous interactions had been online until we met through our dogs in real life.
• Marta, one of my Facebook friends, is someone I met originally online through boxer connections when my partner and I were looking for our first rescue girl, Sassy. We now get together in the real world when she’s in town visiting her mother.

The online world really is converging with my real world – something I’m very happy about – because I’m meeting all kinds of people that I wouldn’t otherwise.

Dug and Spin, Mary-Doug and Freckle - at class